Sermon: C The Epiphany Sunday 6 January 2013

Is 60:1-6; Ps 72:1-7, 10-14; Eph 3:1-12; MT 2:1-12

Lead us to your presence, O God, where we may see your glory face to face. 

AMEN.

“Those magic men, the Magi,

Some people call them wise

Or Oriental, even kings

Well anyway, those guys

They visited with Jesus

They sure enjoyed their stay

Then, warned in a dream of King Herod’s scheme

They went home by another way” Timothy Mayer and James Taylor’s freely adapted today’s Gospel here, while we also hear, “Arise, shine for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you.”

meditation for the Epiphany “Arise, shine, your light has come.”

A couple of my neighbors plaster over their entire houses each Christmas with so many lights and  blinking Santas and glowing nativities that it’s like having a little bit of Vegas on my way home each night. Others have just a string of colored lights around their porch, or electric candle decorations in their windows.

All these thousands of years later, even in the form of all this cheap plastic and LED spectacle, I find profound hope knowing that humans have not lost their instinct for following the light. The wise men found the Christ by no magic or special knowledge other than this: the entirely primitive, entirely human fascination with lights in the sky. We share this instinct with almost every other living creature on earth, including plants and algae. We find God by doing what life does: looking for the light, and growing toward it. And behold, in awe, along with the Magi: the source of all light, shining in the darkness, is here. Arise, shine, your light has come.

Leonart Bramer: Journey of the Three Magi to Bethlehem. Credit: Wiki Commons. Click on the image to enlarge.